When the FCC cancelled Steven Wendell's construction permit
and deleted the call letters last week, it ended a story that
began back in 1988, when Wendell originally proposed a station in
the north Jersey community, just south of the New York state
line. Neighbors of the proposed site on the New Jersey side of the
line fought the construction, and when the FCC began cracking down
on long-unbuilt CPs a few years ago, Wendell tried another tack to
get his station built.

Changing the community of license to Harriman NY, Wendell
modified the CP to specify 250 watts, daytime only, from the
existing site of WRKL (910 New City), on US 202 in Pomona,
Rockland County. But while WRKL rebuilt its site, adding two
towers for night use, WKNJ remained unbuilt. The FCC said last
winter that it would cancel the CP (which had been renewed most
recently in December 1998), but Wendell appealed, telling the
commission this year that he had been unable to build WKNJ because
engineers in the New York area had been too busy with the World
Trade Center recovery. The FCC didn't buy it, noting that Wendell
made no effort to hire engineers from outside the area, and WKNJ
is now officially gone.

(The back politics here: WKNJ's existence would have made
the upgrade of WLIE, on 540 in Islip, impossible; while the Long
Island station pushed to have WKNJ taken off life support, Wendell
filed for another 540 facility, this time in Jaffrey, N.H. That
application is still pending....)

We have a lineup to report for new Binghamton talker WYOS
(1360), thanks to several alert readers down that way: the Citadel
station kicks off the day with Doug Stephan (5-9 AM), followed by
Glenn Beck (9-noon), Bill O'Reilly (noon-2), an hour of Dr. Dean
Edell, Laura Schlessinger (3-6 PM), Jim Cramer (6-7 PM), Tom
Martino (7-10 PM), Laura Ingraham (10 PM-midnight) and America
Overnight.

Here at NERW, we pride ourselves on being thorough when it
comes to towers, so we made it a point to detour from the SBE
regional convention at Turning Stone Casino last week (a
well-attended event, by the way) to check out the newest ones in
the state -- WFNY (1440 Gloversville), Michael Sleezer's new
station, with two towers just a half-mile or so from
Gloversville's heritage AM, WENT (1340) and its recently rebuilt
stick. These towers will soon be sending out 800 watts by day, 500
watts at night, but despite reports of the station testing, there
was nothing on 1440 just yet as we photographed it. (What's more,
we got a flat tire!)

Rochester's first DTV signal made it to the air last week,
at least in testing mode. NBC affiliate WHEC-DT (Channel 58) is
running just 38 kW visual from Pinnacle Hill. Meanwhile, PBS
outlet WXXI-TV (Channel 21) has applied to move its DTV service
from channel 16 to channel 41 whenever it signs on; considering
the analog signal viewers east of Rochester already get on 16 from
WPBS in Watertown, that's a good idea indeed....

Speaking of Watertown, its TV dial is getting a bit of a
spin. UPN is gone from LPTVs WLOT-LP (Channel 66) and WBQZ-LP
(Channel 34), moved to a tape-delayed schedule on LPTVs WNYF-LP
(Channel 28, just granted Class A status this week) and W28BC up
in Massena. Meanwhile, cable viewers who've gotten used to "WBWT,"
the cable-only signal on channel 31, will need to adjust their
dials: it's moving to cable channel 14. (Just to confuse matters
more, the Watertown Daily Times, long an
afternoon paper, moved to morning publication on
Wednesday!)

In Arcade, east of Buffalo, the religious LPFM to be on
100.3 now has a call, WNAR-LP, and a new transmitter site: it'll
be just south of the village of Arcade, practically touching the
Cattaraugus-Wyoming county line.

In Buffalo itself, a familiar voice is back on the air in
morning drive: Nicholas Picholas has rejoined Janet Snyder on the
WKSE (98.5 Niagara Falls) morning show after an absence of two
years, when he crossed the border to do mornings at "Energy Radio"
CING in Hamilton.

Annenberg's print holdings included the
Philadelphia Inquirer and TV
Guide, which he founded nationally in 1953. In later
years, he served as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He
died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at his home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania,
reportedly of pneumonia. Annenberg was 94.

Citadel flipped formats on two of its stations in the
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market, dropping standards on WKJN (1440
Carbondale) and WAZL (1490 Hazleton) and replacing
them -- again -- with simulcasts of news-talk WARM (590
Scranton).

In Allentown, WLEV (100.7) is looking for a new morning
co-host; Diane Grey is off to Flint, Michigan and WFBE (95.1),
leaving "Franceman" solo for the moment.

Moving west, we're pleased to report that WSAJ (1340 Grove
City) is back on the air, now that its unusual horizontal "cage"
antenna on the campus of Grove City College has been
repaired. WSAJ is a relic of an earlier day of radio: it runs just
100 watts during its few hours of weekly broadcasting (Sunday
mornings and two weeknights, for an hour at a time), keeping alive
a license that was first granted in 1921! (The college also runs
fulltime religious/classical outlet WSAJ-FM on 91.1).

Down in Pittsburgh, Dave LaBrozzi is promoted to one of
Clear Channel's new regional VP of programming posts, overseeing
the Clear Channel outlets in the Steel City and nearby Wheeling.
(He'd been OM for WWSW, WBGG and WJJJ, three of Clear Channel's
five Pittsburgh stations.)

1330 was also a two-site operation; the five-tower night
site down in Boardman, Ohio is gone now, so the station will be
effectively a daytimer when it returns to the air. (It was last
heard doing talk under Dan Ott, before filing for bankruptcy and
going up for auction.)

And over in Alliance, WZKL (92.5) dropped its mish-mosh of
AC music on Friday to return to its top 40 heritage as "Q92." Will
the "WDJQ" calls come back too? We hear a call change is pending
there...and we're waiting to see what involvement
veteran CHR programmer Clarke Ingram will have; he helped sign the
station on, but was sidetracked by a family health situation that
forced him home to Pittsburgh over the weekend.

On the radio side of things, add "oldies" to the format
description of Bob Bittner's wonderfully eclectic WJIB (740
Cambridge), which is picking up some of the 1955-1964 era oldies
that are in short supply on the "commercial" oldies outlets like
WODS. Next Sunday (Oct. 6), Bob will launch "Solid Gold Sunday,"
playing the hits of the pre-Beatles era (plus a few later ones
that don't show up much on the air these days) from 2 until 8
PM.

Ken Shelton's latest home on the Boston airwaves will be
Greater Media's WROR (105.7 Framingham), which has hired the
Boston radio vet (WBZ-FM, WCOZ, WBCN, WZLX, WBOS) for middays,
where he'll be followed by Tai and then Julie Devereaux, who moves
to evenings from afternoons at the reborn classic rocker.

Congratulations to Candy O'Terry; the WMJX (106.7) jock/APD
has been named president of the Boston/New England chapter of
American Women in Radio and Television!

Out in Springfield, Ron Osbourne makes the move up I-91 from
WPLR (99.1 New Haven), where he was doing weekends, to the night
shift at WAQY (102.1). We're also hearing (a bit late, as it turns
out) that Phil Dee has parted ways with WHYN (560). Dee, who did
afternoons in WHYN's music days, had been doing a Saturday nights
oldies show on the station, now a news-talker.

Down on the Rhode Island line, WARL (1320 Attleboro) is
again looking for a morning show. After signing a deal with rapper
Luther "Luke" Campbell of 2 Live Crew to do the show via ISDN from
Miami (and installing equipment down there, not to mention buying
Campbell a plane ticket to visit Providence and promote the show),
the new urban station says Campbell simply disappeared when it was
show time, leaving "Power 1320" without a morning show. Meanwhile,
"CAB Radio," the syndicator affiliated with WARL parent ADD Media,
has picked up "Travel World," the Montreal-based show formerly
syndicated by the now-defunct Liberty Works, as its first national
offering.

One that's more than just a well-placed rumor: Jeff Ryan,
who does swing at WWBB (101.5) in Providence and WKSS (95.7) in
Hartford, is adding another leg to his commute: he's now doing
weekends way down in Trenton at WPST (97.5).

The CBC also needs a new host for the next season of "Hockey
Night in Canada." It was unable to reach agreement on a new
contract with Ron MacLean, who's hosted the Canadian institution
with Don Cherry since 1987. On the radio side, the CBC named Jane
Chalmers, director of current affairs for CBC-TV, to replace Alex
France as vice president of CBC Radio, effective November
1.

Sorry to report the passing of Hamilton's first TV
newscaster. Jack Burghardt started the news department at CHCH-TV
(Channel 11), moving in 1971 to CFPL-TV (Channel 10) in London,
where he was the station's main news anchor for a
decade. Burghardt then moved into politics, serving as a member of
parliament, deputy mayor and mayoral candidate before retiring in
1994. Burghardt, who died Saturday (Sept. 28), was 73.

Over in Fort Erie, CKEY (Wild 101.1) now has a PD: Phil
Becker moves up from WJFX (107.9) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to helm
the new Buffalo-market urban CHR, effective October 28.

And CKKW (1090) in Kitchener has rehired Ross Poll to do
mornings; Poll left the station when it flipped from oldies to
sports back in May 2001, but now that "The Team" is gone and
oldies are back, so is Poll.